The Printer’s Perspective

Having carefully considered each file before printing all 100, we asked Selena Simpson from SUNPrint to share some of the decisions made along the way to get the stunning results currently on display within This Time It’s Personal 2019.

Print sales close this Sunday December 15 – this is your final chance to buy with all proceeds donated to Chris O’Brien Lifehouse.

Isamu has put a lot of thought already into his print process. The textured cotton he requested is a great choice for him because the image is so detailed. The tooth of the paper really pops the detail and make it feel alive and 3D. And the media can take a whole lot of ink which means we can get a really beautiful deep black. Usually on a rag, the ink sits a little closer to the surface, so the matt black is not absorbed all the way down into the paper like it is on gloss. This raises the black level compared to a more photographic paper. Canon's matt black ink is awesome and the results on both the Ilford textured and smooth papers are fantastic.

Toby has given us this particular limited edition print to celebrate our 10-year anniversary of TTIP coinciding with his 10-year anniversary of his series Fallen – which is pretty amazing. We chose a smooth cotton media to suit the other limited-edition images from this body of work. Sonora accentuates beautiful tones with a nice deep black and gentle response. This is an amazing price for a limited-edition print – only achievable as it will be sold for charity rather than profit.

Anna often finishes her work with acrylic face mounting which is where a piece of acrylic is sandwiched in front of the print, becoming a stand-alone presentation without framing. She loves a high gloss with good saturation. So it was a no-brainer that we'd use Crystal Gloss stock for this work. The work has come up beautifully.

Juliet has given us a tonal black and white and we've chosen the Ilford Gold Fibre Gloss for that. It has a real photographic feel similar to what you'd get if you were doing a fibre-based print in a dark room. It suited what Juliet was doing because it has a documentary feeling with a bit of an edge.

Sylvè and I discussed the tests prints and it was the artist request that we used a rag paper. We used the Ilford Smooth Cotton Sonora. Often when printing on a rag paper I would consider deepening the blacks and lighten the highlights a little bit because rag papers tend to have less contrast, especially when compared than the image you see on screen. Looking at the skin tones and the colour palette, it was suited to a smooth rag to emphasise that quality in the image. The Sonora is slightly warm tone too which can be a beautiful thing for highlights in skin. You have these cool blue tones in majority and a slightly warmed highlight going through it to add an extra dimension.

Simon Harsent has generously given us one of his images of icebergs from his second series of Melt. In his new series he’s made a diptych with a reverse negative and also a colour shot. Traditionally he’s used the coated paper so we chose an Ilford Gold Fibre Gloss which has a slight texture and a beautiful photographic print feeling.

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In my role as a Printing Specialist I consider it my job to not only match an artist’s intention as closely as possible but also deliver an absolutely beautiful print which makes you feel you are in it – not merely looking at it.